BEFORE: Well, it looks like I'm going to wrap up this Movie Year with only three trips out to movie theaters, having seen "Deadpool & Wolverine", "Hangdog" and "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" the way nature intended. I'm fine with that, really what choice do I have? I won't be able to get to the third "Venom" movie, or "Kraven the Hunter" or "Moana 2" or - you know what, there's a bunch of 2024 movies I'm just not going to be able to fit in, but that's OK. Everything ends up streaming after a month now, so I'll just deal with it all then. I put the rest of the 2024 chain together with some movies that have been on the list for a long time, and right now that's got to take priority.
Jenna Ortega carries over one more time from "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice", which was partially set on Halloween, with trick-or-treaters and everything. It's too bad I couldn't put that film on October 31, but I was just a week off.
THE PLOT: In 1979 a group of filmmakers set out to make an adult film in a rural Texas town, but when their reclusive elderly hosts catch them in the act, the crew find themselves fighting for their lives.
AFTER: I put this on the list about six months ago, maybe, when it was running on premium cable along with its sequel (prequel?) which I'll get to tomorrow. I'm always on the lookout for films that can pair together on DVDs that run on the premium channels that allow me to dub movies to DVD (not all of them do, thanks for nothing HBO/Cinemax). I honestly did not know at the time whether I'd be able to get to them this October, or next October or possibly never. It wasn't until mid-August that I had to start thinking about the October chain, and that's when I realized the chain I had planned wasn't going to work, thanks to a non-link halfway through. OK, clear the dry erase board and start again, see if we can salvage maybe half of the chain that's still legit and link a couple of mini-chains together to make it through the month.
I don't recall ever watching so many slasher films before, the kind where there's not much logic or sense to it all, it's just killing after killing as if the higher the body count, the greater the thrill. But these are empty calories, people, it's like eating cotton candy, sure there's a dopamine release in your brain and maybe an insulin release in your pancreas, but at what cost? No slasher film has ever really elevated the genre, and maybe "Scream" was the first series that even considered there might be a "why" to it all, or at least a set of rules that dictated what the appropriate actions and re-actions to mass slaughter might be.
So I have been subjecting myself to repeated trauma and jump-scares, and so far I can't pinpoint any adverse reactions, so it's possible I may have become somewhat inured to all the killings, because no nightmares (so far) this year that involve the Ghostface or giant sea monsters or zombies or Forever Purgers or even Godzilla fighting King Kong. I wonder why that is, but if you could peek inside my brain you might understand that my nightmares these days involve either event planning and having things go horribly wrong or bumping into my ex-wife at a film festival. Just me? With just 11 days to go until the Presidential Election, I would also wonder right now whether it's even possible to come up with anything scarier than THAT for most Americans. The most common nightmare right now probably concerns oversleeping on November 5 or someone going to the polls and suddenly realizing that they forgot their pants.
But this film concerns an adult film crew going on location in Texas to shoot a porno titled "The Farmer's Daughter", which is a great title for a liltle film-within-the-film, and there was at least one similarly-title R-rated film in the real world, "The Farmer's Daughters" from 1976, and also an X-rated film with the same title from 1986 - and of course Ron Jeremy was in it. But back to the fictional film made in 1979, and from the opening scene of "X" with a Texas sheriff and deputy investigating a crime scene with several bodies, maybe there's a reason why that porn film never got finished. Somebody went on a rampage or killing spree - damn, isn't that always the way during horror month?
The makers of this little indie x-rated film made a few mistakes, perhaps, including renting the boarding house on this out-of-the-way farm without telling the owner of the farm what would be taking place there. Filming permit? Who needs one out in the middle of nowhere? Even though Wayne slips old Howard a few extra bucks, Howard decides he doesn't like these city folk very much, they're dishonest and probably up to no good. But Howard's wife Pearl is fascinated by the film crew, especially Maxine, who is somehow a dead ringer for her younger self. It's a neat trick here, just get the modern-day young actress to pose in costumes to make the old-timey photographs, and then there's just the matter of making her look really old, so she can play both Maxine and Pearl. Filming the scenes with both characters must have been a challenge, but you can do a lot with stand-ins to make it appear that one character played by Mia Goth is interacting with the other one.
The director of "The Farmer's Daughter" wants to make a porno that's, you know, classy, a cut above that's still x-rated but with great cinematography, and really, back then people didn't put too much into the production design or the narrative of x-rated films, story-wise if you had one or two good ideas, or anything beyond "now THESE two people have sex" you were maybe ahead of the game. "Deep Throat" was a mega-hit in the early 1970's and the story literally made no sense, the lead female had a clitoris in her throat, which, umm, is not a thing that happens. I remember also there was a series called "Taboo" where the only plot was that everybody was having sex with somebody they weren't supposed to have sex with, like family members. I think that started the "incest" or "step-" genre of porn. Then I think there was one about female swimmers who needed to get a boost of protein right before every swim meet - really, they were all over-thinking things, if you just want to show people giving BJ's, just do that, you don't need to create this whole back-story as a motivation.
But the mistake that RJ, the director, makes - other than trusting Wayne to rent the location - is to bring along his own girlfriend, Lorraine, to work the boom mic and the slate. Lorraine listens to the cast of "The Farmer's Daughter" talk about how porn empowers women, and now that the sexual revolution has come, women should be free to love whomever they want, and have multiple partners and not be controlled by any one man, so Lorraine decides she wants to be in the movie, too, and have a sex scene with the professional actor, Jackson. RJ is against it, but he just can't have it both ways, preaching about sexual freedom for every woman EXCEPT his own girlfriend. So now there's a pissed-off director who wants to quit the project and drive off in the truck, leaving the rest of the crew behind.
Before RJ can drive off, he's confronted by a very horny Pearl, the very old farmer's wife. RJ just isn't into sex with older women, so he rebuffs her, and that became his last mistake. Pearl has all this sexual energy built up because her husband has a weak heart, so she maybe hasn't had sex for years. All that energy has to go somewhere, so she turns into a killing machine, jealous of all the youngsters who are able to have sex - what a weird twist on the "Friday the 13th" trope of the killer who hates promiscuous teens. Or maybe she just has dementia, or there's another reason for her killing spree, it's not all that clear. But one by one, the film cast and crew are taken down by pitchforks or shotguns, and the kindly old farming couple turns out to have a very dark agenda.
There are a lot of unexplained things here, but perhaps tomorrow's prequel film will shed some light on those details - or they're just red herrings. But clearly there's more story to be told, and now there's even a THIRD film in this series that just popped up on HBO Max, I'll have to either postpone it because I don't have a slot for it OR try to work it in, but that would mean I'll have to drop another film somewhere, which I'm not sure I want to do. The problem is that if I don't work it in now, I don't know if I'll be able to circle back to it next year or the year after that. So it's decision time again - what else can I drop, if anything? Maybe I just can't.
Also starring Mia Goth (last seen in "High Life"), Brittany Snow (last seen in "Pitch Perfect 3"), Scott Mescudi (Kid Cudi) (last heard in "Trolls Band Together"), Martin Henderson (last seen in "The Ring"), Owen Campbell (last seen in "The Perks of Being a Wallflower"), Stephen Ure (last seen in "Mortal Engines"), James Gaylyn (last seen in "The Meg"), Simon Prast, Matthew J. Saville, Geoff Dolan, Bryony Skillington (last seen in "The Power of the Dog").
RATING: 5 out of 10 broken fingers
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